Telegraph 'told to spike Blunkett story'

Lawson: 'You could count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had serious interventions by the owners': Photograph: Rex Features

Former Sunday Telegraph editor Dominic Lawson has told how the paper's chairman, Aidan Barclay, asked him not to run a story about ex-home secretary David Blunkett.

Lawson said the paper's owners, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, wanted a "quiet life without any aggro. That is all very well but you should not own a newspaper group [if that's what you want]".

In contrast he said the paper's former owner, Conrad Black, had "understood that a lot of what newspapers do is about causing trouble".

The former editor, speaking before the House of Lords select committee on communications today, said the story had concerned Blunkett and the "paternity of various children than he may or may not have fathered".

"Aidan Barclay asked me not to run the story. I asked him whether it was for a commercial reason," said Lawson.

"He said David is an important man and will be around for some time. I remember being amazed. He backed down and the story was run."

Lawson said the Telegraph chairman - the son of Sir David Barclay - had been "extraordinarily honest" but also "naive".

"It is not healthy when the intuitive reaction of the owner is to side with a politician against the editor," he told the committee.

But Lawson said it was the only time in his 10 years editing the title under either of its owners at the time - Conrad Black and later the Barclay brothers - that he had been under pressure not to run a story.

He said Black had once asked him to run a leader attacking the Sunday Times in response to a leader in the News International title that had claimed the Sunday Telegraph had made bogus circulation gains.

Lawson resisted, telling Black it was not the purpose of the leader column to engage in "commercial spats" with rivals.

"Conrad liked to have an argument. He said, 'I am the owner of the paper and I can't decide what's in it.' I said, 'You can, but it is unwise.' It was the only time he tried to dictate what a leader should say."

Lawson said the chain of command had changed under the Barclays, who bought the Telegraph group in 2004.

He said: "I had a pretty direct line to Conrad Black. In the case of the Barclays I had a man called Murdoch MacLennan [the Telegraph's chief executive] who acts as a kind of barrier."

Lawson described MacLennan as a "genius with printworks" but without a journalistic background.

"It is slightly awkward when the person between you and the proprietor does not have a feel for it. It can lead to misunderstanding," he said.

"When you are not talking with the press baron you are talking with an employee. That can be less satisfactory because you do want an understanding with the ultimate shareholder."

Lawson said Black was "remarkably uninterventionist" but "liked to create the impression that he was and would tell people he did but it was not actually the case".

He said Black had an affinity with the paper that was not shared by the Barclays.

"You have people who don't have an intuitive feel for the paper," he said. But Lawson said the Barclays were not actively interventionist.

He added: "You could count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had serious interventions by the owners ... It was extraordinarily rare."

But he said there was a "degree of interference" under MacLennan. "You can see it in the astonishing turnover of editors. It suggests a degree of interference that was not previously the case."

Lawson said the desperation to boost advertising revenues in newspapers had led to a "dreadful corruption" in editorial standards, and said he had seen evidence of it in the Telegraph papers with "advertising masked as editorial".

He used the example of a travel feature in which every single car was an Audi. "It looks like editorial but it is not editorial. It is promoting Audi."

Lawson was ousted from the Sunday Telegraph after June 2005 after 10 years in charge of the paper. His departure was the first in a series of changes at the top of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph that have seen seven editors in two and a half years.

Lawson was succeeded by Sarah Sands, who was herself replaced by Patience Wheatcroft, the former business editor of The Times. Wheatcroft left in September, replaced by the latest incumbent, Ian MacGregor.

On the daily title, Martin Newland quit two years ago following John Bryant's appointment as editor in chief. Bryant became acting editor before he was succeeded by Will Lewis in October last year.

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